Animals

Financial security and Trolls

 

I have a troll and no you can’t have him he is my troll I find him entertaining, both his inability to understand English and how that leads to his misunderstanding and that he bothers to vent his misunderstanding so venomously and in such poor English.

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I wanted to break down certain element of a previous post called “success in tough times” in which I state we have “financial security and independence” I hope no one else other than my troll thought this meant we were “financially independent” we are financially secure and I will explain what I mean by this. We are also independent of needing to buy many of the everyday items other people simply buy from shops or services most people pay for.

Independence, let me share a story, a couple of years ago an acquaintance Fiona and I helped to find a property here in France asked me to consider renovating his property. The offer went like this “you do the renovation for me and I will pay you half the money for the job now” I considered this offer and it offered Fiona and I an opportunity. Firstly for Fiona to leave the job she had off site and for me to update my workshop with professional equipment and start a new business without going in to debt. However the acquaintance in question saw an opportunity to exploit his position and act like an ass forgetting I was doing him a favour too, as avoiding poor workmanship in France is an art especially if your French language skills are challenged. Not needing the money from this job simply seeing it as an opportunity to move forward quickly (not always a good idea) I was able to part ways from the acquaintance and concentrate my efforts on our property. Fiona continued working for another year and I found other work off site for someone I actually like and consequently working for them is a pleasure. Had we been totally dependent on working off site I would have had to go ahead with the work for this unpleasant individual who would have probably further exploited his position as most employers do.

Poor People

We are also independent from needing to buy services between Fiona and I we can manage electrical installations and maintenance, plumbing, plastering and rendering, building, joinery, chair making, woodturning, butchery, gardening, knitting, sewing and dressmaking, spinning and sheering, and much more.

Financial security, so we have been asked so many times about the specifics of how we get by financially. Firstly I will reiterate we earn less than 20% of our previous middle-class slave wages so don’t misunderstand me we are not rich or “financially independent”  we are simply less dependent on earning large wages to support a consumptive life style. Presently 50% of our income comes from teaching low cost permaculture design courses. Then 20% of our income comes from working off site either for wages or building contracts, this will be the last year we need to do this. 15% of our income comes from teaching green-woodworking, chair making and woodturning and selling wooden products. 5% of our income comes from eco-camping where people simply camp on a field with very basic facilities no advertising required. The last 10% comes from selling excess produce from our farm this is raising in productivity year on year.

The future will be different as the economy dives deeper in to recession less people will be able to afford to travel and our permaculture courses will stop or reduce in number. We presently only use the income from teaching permaculture to develop our site further reducing our needs from off site. I see teaching green-woodworking, chair making and woodturning and selling wooden products becoming around 50% of our future income. People will always need something to sit  on and eat off and I don’t see this changing. The other 50% of our future income will come from farm produce as our investment in tree produce comes to fruition we will make value added products to sell on the local markets. The market culture in France is still alive and kicking and I see this returning to a central focus for feeding our neighbours well in to the future.

I don’t imagine my troll will have read to this point hence his inability to understand fully. Just in case he does he should re-evaluate his understanding of a certain acquaintances financial position which is based on lies the troll swallowed without question.

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